An Interview With A Spectre
by Alex Mcpherson
Summary: After years of silence, The Alliance's most notorious and famous soldier has agreed to give an Interview, to talk about the past, present, and future. This is Emily Wong, with the Alliance News Network.
1. It Builds Character

**It Builds Character**

I was born on the Colony Mindoir, April 11th 2154. My parents requested the posting, to give them time to raise me until I was old enough to be with them on ship-board posts. when I was four, they transferred to the SSV Harrogate, a mid-sized support vessel that never gets sent into combat zones until they aren't such anymore. By the time I was old enough to start high school, I'd been on a lot of ships and stations. Then they decided that I was better off living with an Aunt and Uncle on Earth. They'd never even been to earth, and short visits to the planet-bound facilities there for the Systems Alliance Navy doesn't count.

It's a lot different than they thought it'd be. For one thing, because my Aunt and Uncle aren't blood relatives, and it was more of an informal arrangement while I attending high school, when my dad died on duty, he'd transferred to a combat ship that was damaged in some attack... I didn't find out until mom sent a letter... three months later asking how I was handling the news about his death. And I dont mean that it took three months for it to reach me... I mean she literally waited all those months before getting in touch.

So yeah, Not a few issues with mommy dearest.

Then my Aunt died. She was just walking home, when some thug stabbed her, stole her stuff and ran off. she was left on the sidewalk for hours before a passing police car reported it... despite the fact that it was a public path that saw a lot of use.

My Uncle took it hard, and either ignored me or, in fits of rage at the world, beat me. I left.

For awhile, I was stuck on the streets, sleeping in dank corners, with nothing to stop predators. And god I wish I meant wild dogs. Eventually I joined a gang, to protect myself. I... prefer not to remember that period of my life.

I was fifteen when I had my chance. A recruiter down on his numbers ignored certain signs and put me through the system. It hadn't been the first attempt, but never more than once to each recruiter.

I lied about who I was and joined the Alliance. They sent me to a training facility they'd built on Mindoir, one of a dozen sattelite facilities for training enlisted personnel. Because Genetic enhancement was part and parcel of joining any of the services, that is, If I wanted to be more than a desk jockey that's only in it for 3 years of paid college tuition, DNA samples were taken, analysed for any incompatibilities with certain boosts for the only fields I passed for (all of which are combat related) and... they identified me. And my real age. So they dumped me out of the service, with a message to that old cow that I was barred from entry into the alliance due to lying about who I was and how old I was on my first application.

Thankfully, they didn't send me back to earth. No, they just kicked me out the door and that was that. Literally.

Mindoir... it... it was easy enough getting onto my own feet there. This lovely couple with their own rebellious daughter (Katya) my age took me in, and insisted that I went to High School, which I'd quit at the same time as I'd ran away from my Uncles. At first, I was in classes with much younger kids, because lets face it, the overcrowded classes on earth had teachers that couldn't be bothered, and my parents had been too busy working and changing posts every two to three months to let me have a stable education, whether it was them or someone else.

This, caused certain problems. I was bullied a lot... for the first few months. but like I said, the people who took me in were lovely. They helped me out, and (even to this day) I have no idea how, but they somehow roped Katya into tutoring me in the subjects she was getting top marks in - literature and history. On a scale of one to ten, with ten being top marks, and five being the minimum to pass to the next year level with everyone else, (Six being the average for those without genetic enhancement, seven with), because my parents were both enhanced and passed those to me, I rate an eight. An eight gets me from sitting in classes with eleven-twelve year olds, up to classes with those the same age - fifteen-sixteen, in six months.

It was mental, as Katya would say. When I turned Sixteen, there was a big party... well not big like I've seen my friends have... friends... even to this day it amazes me that I could call anyone a friend and _mean_ it. Anyway, my friends had big parties where they'd invite several dozen people, there'd be loud music and stuff. But then again they were... popular is misleading, I dont mean popular as in they think they are because they're jocks or cheerleaders, in the 'in' crowd, no I mean, they're... average, everyone knows them and aside from a handful, didn't hang around the same small group every minute of every day, fluid friend dynamics is how my guardians described it once. But me, I settled for hanging around half a dozen, and even that wasn't all the time. I'd grown up solitary, had to learn how to have fun with my self... and that sounded alright in my head.

my 'big' party was just those six friends, my guardians, Katya...

three weeks later, and I was glad that I'd only gotten the boot from Basic halfway through, because by then they'd finished basic gun safety, maintenance and use. It was the beginning of the Skyllian Blitz. The Batarian Slavers were here.

I was one of the few that managed to fight them off physically. I'd learned a lot running with a gang, and a lot on my own before and since.

Did I mention that my parents had genetic enhancements that was passed onto me? I'm strong for my age... hell I'm stronger than many adults on this planet. And when I was young, listening to my parents when they'd have a briefing and thought I wasn't near... well I've picked up some things along the way.

Maybe that's why everyone turned to me for what to do.

I have to admit, as serious as it was... and as torn as I later had been watching my guardians being cut down in a hail of weapons fire despite having surrendered because they were 'too old'... I did have fun showing Katya how to shoot. And... after said incident, even I couldn't blame Katya for taking a little enjoyment what she did to those batarians in our counter attacks.

Where was the alliance, you'll be wondering?

Well... the batarians took out the token garrison at the same time as our Extranet bouys, cutting us off.

It took two weeks for the Alliance to even start sending ships. And it takes two days to travel - even between Mass Relays takes a while, and longer travelling with normal FTL to reach said relays or planets.

They sent out a patrol ship to investigate. It was destroyed two days later. The alliance gave them five days to investigate and send word. Note the use of 'and'. Four days travel, and a day to linger.

So it was into the third week they even sent out a proper force... to investigate how our colony went 'black', and to investigate what happened to the patrol ship... and in fleets, there's the slower ships in the group to account for. You can probably see where I'm going with this.

In all, we'd been fighting constant attacks for a month by the time the alliance arrived.

A Month.

Now, you'll probably wonder about just how the slavers were attacking.

Well, the initial attack on that first day was quite a lot of combat ships... then they switched to area-by-area heavy pacification, with a side order of planet-wide raiding parties to keep everyone outside their main target from rallying against them.

the town I lived in was hit in the second week, by that point I'd gathered a sizeable force and had been leading them against the raiders.

Over time, we got better, and bigger as more people flocked to... my banner, I guess, in the hopes of staying safe. When the batarians moved their eyes to our town, we were ready. _I_ was ready... and we really gave them one hell of a fight.

I had a leg up, I admit, in more ways than just what I've said. Batarian tactics was one of the few things I'd learned about before I ever heard of algebra or trigonometry.

The alliance fleet that arrived was lead by a cruiser under the command of Captain Hackett. Yes, that Hackett. After 'Pacification' of the Batarian slavers, it didn't take long for the unit assigned to my town to hear about our group's success. He offered me a full enlistment and education scholarship for officers training on the spot. Apparently he'd served with my dad, and I'd inherited his tactical skills.

What about that ban from enlistment? yeah, Hackett got it overturned, and outright erased from my file.

So yeah, that's my life until I joined the Alliance Marines.

**A/N:** You can probably guess where I'm going with this :P and who.


	2. Service History

**Service History**

_"Hi, I'm Emily Wong, and welcome back to this very exclusive interview with the notoro-"_

_"Emily, please... It's Sarah."_

_Emily Wong laughs, and with a nod, continues, "With Sarah Shepard, former Alliance Marine and now, if rumors are to be believed, the most senior field agent for Special Tactics and Reconaissance, colloquially known as Spectres throughout the galaxy. When we left off before the break, you had just finished telling us about your time before joining the Alliance... And you'd already made your mark on the galaxy. I can't wait to hear what happened afterwards, for all the rumors that made you notorious even before becoming a spectre, almost all of those events are still classified top secret. So, Sarah... What's the scoop?"_

_With a sad smile, Sarah Shepard began to talk._

Well, once I'd joined, properly that is, Captain Steven Hackett decided to take me under his wing. See, after the events of Eden Prime, and thereafter, it's a common misconception that Councilor Anderson was my mentor. No, that was Captain Hackett just before his promotion... and after, I guess.

I got sent to the best Marines training facility we had. I can't tell you where it is, what it's name is, or any details... Sorry Emily. I spent three months learning that what I thought I knew, was wrong. And even when it was right it was wrong... things like just what I could do physically... mentally...

After the first month, I began a series of genetic enhancements... soldier boosts as we call em. It would take a fortnight for each... level of boost, to take effect and for me to adapt. By the time I'd finished basic training, I was pretty high up the scale. But even so, Experience counts for a lot, and compared to others at my level, I didn't have any.

The next six months were spent at Tech School on Arcturus Station. Throughout I was expected not just to maintain combat training scores, but to improve, and improve I did. You've probably heard of the N7 rating, with the red stripe? No I didn't get that in my first few months... but the N represents Special Forces, while the number indicates skill level... and to get into the Special Forces, you have to rate N1, and to get that rating is a lot harder than even attaining level 4 for regular infantry. It can take many at my level a year to get that. But Special Forces isn't about the typical soldier... I rated N2 by the time I finished Tech School.

And no, Emily, that doesn't mean I beat any records. I'm actually about average on that score up through to N5.

By the time a year had passed since Mindoir... I was already out on my first mission with a Special Forces Unit. There were about forty of us, and I was bottom of the pole, as the 'FNG'. You know what that means? You're blushing so you obviously do. Anyway, the mission wasn't all that special, standard fare really, a recon mission in support of some long forgotton conflict most can't remember. I did well, and a few missions later, they put me on another squad - when they got another FNG. That squad was lead by Lieutenant Anderson, and that's where we met. I hated him within five seconds of him speaking.

He was young - mid twenties, while I myself was only seventeen. He saw my age - which Hackett had to cash in favours for in order to get me in before I turned eighteen - and assumed that I was some admirals daughter trying to play with the big leagues. Mindoir was a big embarrasment for the Alliance, so they'd kept real quiet on any specifics. They didn't want to be shown up by a teenage girl accomplishing what they couldn't - we did have a garrison of fully trained personnel along with a fully-staffed and, at the time, active training facility with adults who had more training than I did. So I was only rumors in a few circles, none of which included a bratty officer who even after a year seemed still as green as the college he went to.

We did not get along well.

Oh, I should tell you... There was this time... I was a Corporal by then and he'd gotten his first promotion, anyway some of our squad dragged him out to a club, and he actually pleaded with me to pretend to be his girlfriend so he could turn down all the women who were coming onto him... of course this was after already going with this story for the third time in a row when I came back to the group with some drinks, and everyone just cracked up seeing the paniced look on his face, while I, having heard him, stared at him like he was vermin.

Rumor has it, that he pissed his pants, but I wouldn't know. I was too angry to notice.

Sorry David.

Actually, I think that was the event that... broke the ice between us. I dont recall him being as... confrontational with me after that. Personally I just think I scared him shitless.

That was about two years into time in the alliance, I think. After so long a lot of the particulars are a bit blurry.

Steven was promoted in 2174, and by then I hadn't yet even started the college education he'd insisted on me taking. Up till then, his mentoring me was from afar, usually because my unit wasn't posted to his ship. But I needed some down time, and I agreed to transfer to a desk post on Arcturus as part of his staff while I go went through college. After a year though... well as much as I like Steven, I did not like the desk job. Not one bit. Dont smile Emily... no... quit laughing.

_"Commander Shepard, Badass Spectre... scared of a desk job"_

Yes yes laugh it up Emily. I'm not made for that kind of work. I'm... I do things. I dont write about doing things.

Or about others doing them.

The military college programs are very condensed... designed to let enlisted personnel who, extra time around duties permitted, run through very quickly. I graduated and was immediately given the rank of Staff Lieutenant, and transferred to a Special Forces Unit. Command of my own squad, and nominal second in command of the unit behind the Lieutenant Commander.

It was all your basic, generic stuff then for the next year, and I attained N6 just before...

2176, and that's when it happened again.

You're wondering why I said the Skyllian Blitz started with mindoir? Well, to those who were there, that's true. Like I said, the alliance tried to down play it, even as large scale that was, which is why for the Alliance, the Skyllian Blitz began with...

With, Elysium.

I'm sorry... I just need a moment.

_"We'll be right back after the break. This is Emily Wong, An Interview With a Spectre."_


	3. The Road To Normandy

**The Road To Normandy**

_"Hi, I'm Emily Wong, and welcome back to this very exclusive interview with __Sarah Shepard, former Alliance Marine and now, if rumors are to be believed, the most senior field agent for Special Tactics and Reconaissance, colloquially known as Spectres throughout the galaxy. When we left off before the break, you were about to tell us about Elysium. So, Sarah... What's the scoop?"_

_With a sad smile, Sarah Shepard began to talk._

First, I should give a bit of context to why I was there.

Part of being mentored by Steven, as part of his staff... well, when he was posted to a ship, or a planet, wherever, if it wasn't combat, he's expected to take his staff with him, including me. And I'd been to Elysium several times in the year I'd spent on his staff. He didn't want the spacer life for his kids, and his wife didn't much like living on ships either, so they lived on a planet. They lived on Elysium. And everytime he took time off to visit them, I went with. Officially it was because A, he's mentoring me, and B, as part of his staff I could keep him abreast of any situ- What? What?

Oh. right. Wait... thinking on that, there is no way to say it without that sounding dirty to your dirty dirty perverted mind.

Anyway, yeah, there was that. So I got to know them. Mary is a lovely woman, although that wasn't my first impression. She didn't realise that I was a woman for a start, so there were... well yes there were accusations of a certain kind flying around. Then she got to know me the only way she could with me.

We went to a nightclub and she tried to set me up with some guys... it didn't work out, but we had fun.

So yeah. After transferring from his staff, I managed to wrangle trips to Elysium for pretty much every vacation since then... well until the Batarians attacked.

As Special Forces, and due my rank, one of the prividledge I had that had nothing to do with Steven was that I could carry certain advanced communications devices that dont route through local extranet channels. That and the Alliance had learned something from Mindoir, so when the attack began, I sent out a distress signal immediately.

That I ha... er... access local military resources to see just how big the attack was, and attached that data, is probably the reason for the sheer size of the Alliance response. And a good thing too, the attack consisted of about ten times the forces that attacked Mindoir.

Knowing what I did... I did everything I could to rally a guerilla force. Not exactly something the Alliance condones, but they also can't protest it. Not when the core of it were the local police forces, and various... ah... combat trained personnel, including a lot of turians.

Elysium is well known for having a population that is only half human, the other half consisting of aliens - asari, salarians, even a sizable number of quarians and Turians. And I knew about Turian social-military doctrine, so any and every turian I met I... uh... volunteered. Which was not a bad decision, given that not only did I not loose a single one of them, but also that not one of us were killed in action.

I... It took the alliance three days to mount a counter-attack/rescue. And in those three days... it was a lot worse than Mindoir. I saw... I saw a lot of bad things. The Pirates and Slavers attacked with a ferocity I'd never really seen even on Mindoir. They destroyed buildings outright, landed large numbers of people and literally occupied the various cities. I wasn't the only one organizing resistance, but I was... I was the most successful. And I was only there to visit Mary and the kids, irony, huh? I tried to get them to join me but...

But... But Mary... she...

The Kids were at school when it began, and she insisted on getting them. But the school was too far, and one of the first things the Batarians did was somehow disable all the skycars... it was too far on foot.

So she left anyway.

During the clean up... Steven activated a tracking chip she'd had surgically implanted. He had the codes to remote activate it, we... we found her. Her throat was... it looked like she'd been attacked by large varren... her clothes were torn and...

Anyway the kids were fine, as soon as the staff at the school received the alert, pretty quickly too, they got everyone to safety. Jacob and Sam were in the group kept safe by one of my guerilla units lead by a Turian, Nihlus Kryik.

Name sounds familiar doesn't it? We met six... seven years later on the Normandy. That Nihlus Kryik.

That's when the council began to review me for entry into the Spectres. Their review period can be quite long.

But they considered me too young then. I was only 22.

Steven wasn't the same since then. The kids left Elysium... even with Nilhus keeping them safe... I think they saw something. Loosing their mom was hard on them too. So they decided to live with their dad on Arcturus Station. He wasn't going to let them move to colonies in the Traverse or the Skyllian Verge, which is pretty much the only places we were allowed to colonise as they weren't technically under council law. And Steven knew from me what Earth was like, he didn't want them to turn into human supremacists or something.

There's a phrase he once used, and he originally just meant me, but he's come to include them too. War makes soldiers of us. We either Die, or We Fight and then Die.

For six Months, I did all I could to stay out of the spotlight. Ha, 'the soldier who rallied a nation' is one title I heard used. I punched the guy out who tried chatting me up after thinking he was complimenting me with that. The alliance tried to make me a poster gal, of course, but I wasn't having any of it. I'd been warning them for years that something like this was due. As I'd learned after Elysium, it was something that was going to plague my career. The Curse of Cassandra... to know something will come and yet not be believed or listened to. I refused to do any interview they ordered, and got away with it as thankfully such situations are covered for in the rule book. and they weren't about to court-martial me for refusing those sorts of orders even if the rule book didn't cover it. And in those six months, they kept me off active duty. Stuck behind a desk. I hated every second of it.

Finally, Steven managed to swing me a posting, but not Special Forces. Regular marine duty, leading a squad of fifty marines on regular patrols.

Eight months of it... and then my squad got the call that Akuze had gone silent. I got the call because they feared it was another slaver attack.

It wasn't.

You've heard of thresher maws, right? Council races were warning us about them, but as a race, we didn't believe it, the thinking was that it was propaganda to slow down our reach into space.

Yeah well, I learned first hand, not only are they not a myth, but they're incredibly dangerous, and nigh-impossible to take down.

That was the first time I got my hands on a Nuke.

You got that right.

I spent three weeks alone there, with nothing but a thresher maw hunting me down for most of it. I had to learn an entire new way of movement to stay undetected, the damn things have sonar as one of their exceptional senses. I raided the devastated colony, and found their power generator. And thanked the gods for the tech school courses.

Rigged up a Nuke, set the timer and put it in the kind of casing starships use - had to scrape it off our non-functional dropship. Then lured the maw and managed to entice it to eat the damn thing... then set off another bit of bait miles out.

Radiation poisoning is a terrible way to die, and I was almost a goner when A passing carrier picked up my weak distress call through the fallout.

And wouldn't you know it, but it was commanded by the one person who hadn't contacted me since asking me how I was from supposedly learning my dad died. My mother.

Seeing her daughter on deaths door... particular from standing in the detonation zone of a Nuke and somehow bloody well surviving it... once I was healed up and everything a year later, and banging on the doors to return to duty, she was there to finally show motherly concern.

Too right I didn't take it.

When I returned to duty, there was a lot of curfuffle, as Steven would say, I was to be the only living human to be awarded a particular award. Oh, it got awarded to many people in earths' equivalents who survived detonation but died from the radiation fallout during world war three. But that was the first nuke to be detonated not in war since we got the technology to fight radiation poisoning at those levels. Every other time we've used them since gaining that tech, was always on enemies. I'm a special case. Basically it's a badge to say 'I survived a nuclear bomb, how awesome am I, now excuse me I need to go back to being dead.'

Oh, they kept the whole nuke thing quiet, and had to keep the medal quiet too. But fact is, I should have died. And I didn't. Is it any wonder that even years later, Cerberus were curious about me?

See, I didn't know it at the time, but they were responsible for the whole thing.

Skip to about two months after I'd recovered... and the Alliance finally got into the swing of counter-attacking Pirates and Slavers. The Blitz had ruined several colonies permanently, and although many attacked rebuilt, well... the Alliance reputation was hurt bad by the whole thing. Everyone, including myself, wanted payback.

At the time, The Alliance had... maybe fifty carriers? Oh, there were the Big Six, each about the same or larger than even the Destiny Ascension, but only two were complete then, the other four were in the last year of construction. But the Alliance Navy has about six size classes of Carriers, from heavy cruiser sized Fast Carriers, through to two-thirds size of Destiny Ascension Fleet Carriers. Fleet disposition what is is, the carriers are not built for long-term occupation like the ocean going carriers of the twentieth century. No, these bad boys are considered hangers, maintanence facilities, and engines, with a few token weapons, relying on escorting ships and onboard fighter squadrons for defence. The smallest ships were packed with two hundred fighters. Even frigates and Cruisers had their hangers modified to carry their own squadrons of fighters - twenty or so to the cruisers.

And for the ground side of things, the Marines had our own fleet of Marine Carrier ships - same as the Navy's fighter carriers but with dropships instead. In the lead up, I was promoted to Lieutenant Commander, and given command of about three thousand marines.

While the Air Force and Navies got most/half of their recruits from EArth, the Marines get theirs from the colonies, understanding that for the ground pounders defending their homes is a big motivation. So imagine. Three thousand blood-thirsty marines seeking payback for their friends and families being taken or killed?

Not one of my people hadn't lost someone.

I lost people. And I had seen the pirates and slavers do too much to take any other course of action.

They called me the Butcher of Torfan, because I killed even those who surrendered. But the difference, between me, my people, and them? We didn't rape them. We didn't torture them. We didn't tear their throats out and left them to bleed on the floor. We didn't aim for the gut, where they would die slow, painfully. We did what we were trained to do. We Kill. Efficiently. A shot to the heart or a shot to the head. One Shot. Quick. Clean. More than they deserved. So really, Who's the butcher?"

_"... I... We'll... We'll Be... back... after a break..."_


	4. Ashore

**Ashore**

_"Hi, I'm Emily Wong, and welcome back to this very exclusive interview with __Sarah Shepard, former Alliance Marine and now, if rumors are to be believed, the most senior field agent for Special Tactics and Reconaissance, colloquially known as Spectres throughout the galaxy. W... So, Sarah... What's the scoop?"_

_With a sad smile, Sarah Shepard began to talk._

Sorry I scared you earlier... it's just that I can be a bit...

_"Tetchy?"_

Gee... Thanks... but yeah, I can be a bit tetchy about certain things like Torfan. People generally assume I'm Xenophobic, and cite Torfan, along with Elysium and Mindoir for why, but I'm not. Hell, I worked with people who actually fought during the First Contact War on both sides... and had to play diplomat between them when old war grudges cropped up, but... let me put it this way. I look at Individuals as Individuals, not as one of a large group. I always have. If I didn't, I'd be a Raging Xenophobe spokewoman for Terra Firma. Or worse. But I'm not.

After Torfan, there was a big backlash against me... but I had a lot of support among the Marines. And I don't just mean my unit. Alliance Brass wanted to hang me out to dry for 'disrespecting this that and the other... I'm reasonably sure that a pen had been about to sign off on a dishonourable discharge at some point. But the fact is, Pirates and Slavers had such an impact that there was support for that entire op from start to finish, and is responsible for driving recruitment on the colonies so high before and since Torfan. If you lived on a Colony World, then it is safe to assume that you have been affected in some way by them. And we human beings are nothing if not vindictive when driven to it.

It wasn't well known but, a few hundred good marines actually quit over the brass' reaction. I understand all of their reasons - it's... it's never just one reason, unless it's something bigger even than that. The person who quits over something small probably doesn't deserve to have worn the uniform in the first place. But a lot of things over time... it's not good to have a soldier who no longer holds respect for the chain of command.

For a while... I was that soldier. Admiral Hackett was one of the few who I respected. He had me brought back onto his staff, he wanted to protect me while it all blew over. 'Give it six months and they'll forget the name shepard' he said.

_"Too optimistic?"_

Oh yeah. Elysium made me a bit of a celebrity in civilian circles, but Torfan made me downright Notorious in the military. The brass wouldn't let me be assigned to another marine ground unit, and no Navy ship would have me. At least... until a certain Marine Lieutenant whom I hated transferred to the Navy, and got his first posting as a ship's XO and talked his CO into it.

_"Let me guess, Captain Anderson?"_

Well, he was a Staff Commander at that point, assigned as the first officer to the SSV Perugia. He got me on as the CO for the Marine contingent onboard. Oh... eighty, ninety marines. From then on, I pretty much followed him to each of his postings. Frigates, Cruisers... even a Carrier that had a mixed flight of Air/Navy Fighters and Marine dropships.

His own, 'star' was rising, so to speak, and in 2181, he was promoted and given command of the SSV Hastings. An aging ship, but also one with a pretty good history. Somehow, he managed to talk the brass into giving me an otherwise overdue promotion to Staff Commander, and made me his exec. Normally though, when a Marine becomes part of a ship's chain of command that includes navy personnel under my purview, aka ships' captain or first officer, they transfer across to the Navy. Well, David didn't manage that, my name was still... 'poison' according to the high-class navy brats that were the brass back then. But they thought the Hastings was on the way out, so threw him a bone seeing it as a favour for a favour. As I said, it was overdue. They'd been blocking it for two years at that point and hoped that I could be... 'put out to pasture' while serving on that ship.

Then of course, they finally got word that I was under consideration for joining the Spectres, in 2182. David found out first, and with Steven, the pair arranged for us to transfer to a new ship in development, still a year from being completed. A ship more classified than even most Carriers. A Frigate yes, but it had a classified stealth system... and was being built in conjuction with the Turian Heirarchy.

The SSV Normandy SR-1.

I spent a good six months memorising everything I could about the ship, in between choosing the crew. New ship, classified tech, it was up to me as the ships first officer to pick the crew.

I don't know why, I guess I felt what was coming somehow... precog has never been proven or disproven but there's plenty of coincidence to keep the idea as possible even in the minds of salarians. But there were... gaps... in the crew. Not for lack of personnel to fill those gaps, but more like... I knew I could find better before the ship was fully commissioned, and not by looking through personnel jackets.

Anyway, just after new years, 2183... the ship was ready for a shakedown run. The Turians wanted an observer, and my Spectre sponsor offered to be it, give him a chance to be around me, to get a feel for my personality that can't be gotten from reports.

And that's when Eden Prime was attacked.

_"... Did your stomach just growl?"_

Sorry, skipped breakfast this morning.

_"Well, that's as good a place as any... After the break, we'll be getting the scoop on just what happened During the hunt for a rogue Spectre, and is the commander really into Asari? See you in a bit."_

Asari huh? wait...Emily! I can't believe you jus-


End file.
